The Freighter has always had only two slots available for weaponry. Either two different weapons, or launcher+weapon. The good thing is the 7 slots for other devices, so you can eventually deck it out with auto-defense, a quantum cpu, hyoerion drive, jump drive, enhancers or whatever you want. And with <20 ton armor segments and 200tons of cargo space without need for a cargo bay, you will have a tank. The weapon systems limitation is absolutely a fair tradeoff, you should not be able to have evertyhing at once.

@Bruno: The method to my madness is simple ( and I have a long history of the same kind of crazy ):
The changes made over the years to minor things have obviously escaped me, In my first games I had not understood that I could play more then the ship I was offered when I loaded the game.
( some new players might experience that assumption )

It was only AFTER defeating the ICS ( using the IM90 & Tev9 - do not recall using anything else other then Domina rescuing me from total destruction at one point and telling me to run away)
After finally making it to the last gate I found the forums & have played the Wolfen or custom ships since ( AFTER reaching the last gate w/ the Wolfen did I look at custom ships)

So, the changes to the Freighter are not huge to US..we have experience. The Issue I was trying to present is that our experience could devastate an inexperienced player's over-all experience with the game.

What I think would be interesting, probably bloat the file size & be riddled with over-powered stuff would be to suggest that the game eventually carry several levels of player challenge from 'standard' ( beginner ) 'difficult' ( experienced ) and 'extreme' ( Hard Core - PermaDeath ) .

Flying Irresponsibly In Eridani......

I don't like to kill pirates in cold blood ..I do it.. but I don't like it..

The game could certainly use more useful devices. Right now, even with the additional options provided by CC, there isn't all that much that the player would be willing to forfeit the Wolfen's smaller profile and better maneuverability for. Right now you could possibly want is at most 2 slots for buffing a weapon(either a bottomless omnithermo or a speedloaded MKVII plus a lithium booster), plus a third slot for a drive if you're flying something slower than the Wolfen. There's no time limitation or piracy threat when trading after clearing a system, so cargo space isn't much more than a QOL improvement, and the marginally better armor options are only really present up to 12kg, which the Wolfen can use.

More on - topic, I like what's been done with the Ares sentries. They're much more formidable now, and the patterns in which they are set up look much more appropriate for an organized military entity than the random placement used in previous versions did.

The nice thing about Wolfen is it is fun to use in the beginning. It does not need to wait until midgame when the devices that let other ships match or surpass Wolfen appear.

Early-game, non-weapon devices are mostly expensive unknown items that make no sense to risk your limited funds on. By mid-game, options expand. There are cargo holds, patcher arms, engines, and jumpdrive. By mid-game, there are plenty of devices the Wolfen, or any other playership, can use, and the two non-weapon limit hurts, though at .25c speed and excellent turning, at least Wolfen can ignore engines (but it hurts a little - enhanced Titan or Megadrive is very nice). Freyr is really hurt. All the weaknesses of the Wolfen, plus sub-.25c speed. If Eternity Port had Elysium, Spartan and Raijin would be hurting as much as Freyr. (I usually almost brainlessly equip cargo hold and jumpdrive on Wolfen. In Eternity Port where jumpdrive is useless, it gets replaced by a fast engine on Spartan/Raijin.) I dislike the Nares mission is Heretic with a passion because I need to give up one of my two precious non-device slots for a junky quest device. I refuse to take that mission except as an utter last resort.

Until frames were decoupled with rotation speed (around 1.3 or so), Sapphire was superior to Wolfen by midgame. Now, at least Wolfen has the maneuverability advantage even if Sapphire gets a better engine.

If there is one ship I would consider the most powerful, it would be the EI500 by midgame, when it can get a Titan engine and plenty of non-device slots are available. Also, EI500 does not need a cargo hold, while most other playerships greatly benefit from one. EI500's greatest weakness is the two weapon slot limit.

so cargo space isn't much more than a QOL improvement, and the marginally better armor options are only really present up to 12kg, which the Wolfen can use.

For me, a gigantic QoL improvement to the point I consider cargo hold mandatory for Wolfen, and almost mandatory for every other playership with no more than 50 tons of cargo space. I consider heavy armor a liability for Wolfen because it hurts maneuverability. Wolfen works best using light armor that a Sapphire can use.

In my first games I had not understood that I could play more then the ship I was offered when I loaded the game.
( some new players might experience that assumption )

The "ship class" buttons are definitely potentially missable. Some games use small portrait icons on the arrow buttons when you are toggling between player options so that you can see what the next/previous choices are.

Things like fighting games use a selection screen, which is a grid of portraits. Transcendence (at least, unmodded Transcendence) doesn't really need that because there are a maximum of 6 choices depending on adventure and players don't start new games frequently enough that the selection screen has to be quickly navigable.

A lot of arcade shooters will list ship classes on top of one another with their stats directly comparable as bar graphs, pictograms or radar charts. Again, maybe not the best option for Transcendence.

Currently I am playing both the Wolfen and the Freighter in games : had to adjust to playing the Freighter again after all this time and actually got killed by the Raiders..but not last night, I made it past BA..I almost think I remember how to play that ship.

While I would like the Freighter to return to two weapons ( because I like to Mine & it has a value in combat if you have at least one Ammo weapon) OR a few Slot-less weapons that might make sense when the player has the Freighter in play ( I don't see Slot-Less weapons being a thing for some other ships, but I suppose it depends on the weapon.)

Turning in the Freighter - last night was no problem, it started to 360 like crazy on me, I think I hit a patch of ice ...LOL

The Wolfen has Always needed a Cargo fitting, I usually go for the Miner's Cargo Hold simply because it relates to the ship's income along the way : I like providing materials for the factories, as if it's a Mini Mission for my adventure.

Flying Irresponsibly In Eridani......

I don't like to kill pirates in cold blood ..I do it.. but I don't like it..

Does heavy armor actually hurt maneuverability? I just got through killing about eighty Phoboses in a Wolfen with no engine upgrade and maximum armor weight, and I didn't notice any difference. Perhaps the relationship should be more extreme, and even impact maximum speed? Part II explores that idea, though the difference in durability would need to be much higher to make sacrificing max speed, the stat to rule all stats, worth considering.

The two weapon limit for the EI500 isn't as much of a weakness as its huge profile and need to spend large amounts of power on a drive are, IMO. Not having a NAMI launcher to pick up anything in the gap between your flyswatter and your basecracker hurts a little in the first half of midgame, but after that you only really need the two.

Regarding the mining laser, would it be viable to have it take up a device slot instead? This might make freighters more viable, especially considering the need to quickly mine up an ore field before the claim - jumpers get to it makes cargo space somewhat useful(though it can still be cheesed by dumping the ore into crates for later).

The EI500 might actually make good use of mining pods, it can carry a lot of them. They don't take up any slot. Perhaps they need some improvements, before being very usable. but for weaponless mining they could be the answer.
It has been a long time since I actually did active mining. Of course I pick up ore that is left behind, or extracted from rocks during fighting in asteroid belts. But that is not really mining Perhaps in my next game?

@ JBW: Heavy armor does not hurt maneuverability per se, but they add mass. Devices get progressively heavier too. Load your ship down with enough mass and your ship will get sluggish. In early versions of Transcendence, both Wolfen and Sapphire had a tight budget of mass they could equip before they became as sluggish as the EI500 (and EI500 and other massive ships were mostly unaffected). More recent versions are more forgiving, but it is still possible to weigh down the Wolfen to some extent.

Profile size is a double-edged sword. Generally, smaller is better, but for escort missions, you want a big profile to block shots aimed at much more fragile NPCs. In case of EI500, it is not much bigger than Sapphire or Wolfen, and probably equal or smaller than expansion ships.

Player should get at least .25c as soon as possible. Spending power on a drive applies to all ships except Wolfen, not just EI500 only. Wolfen is one of the blessed few to not need a drive (and pays for it with a tiny base cargo hold with less space than even other gunships). Even then, if I had a third non-weapon slot on the Wolfen, I probably would put an engine on it because .28c or more is much better than .25c, not to mention extra thrust from an engine to offset extra mass from heavy high-level equipment (armor and devices) and/or cargo.

The two weapon limit for EI500 is very inconvenient. In the old days, having two fabricated god weapons named IM90 and Iocrym Fracture Cannon at +150% each would have been enough. Aside from that, I find I want at least three weapons, especially if I want a launcher.

If mining laser used non-weapon device, I would feel ripped-off during times I play with any of the four gunships. EI500 already has a massive advantage with its 200 ton cargo hold.

If mining laser used non-weapon device, I would feel ripped-off during times I play with any of the four gunships. EI500 already has a massive advantage with its 200 ton cargo hold.

Yep, agree.

The differences is all about choice and consequenses, and this is a very important part of the replay value. Gunship gives different playstyle than Cargo ship etc, and this is very good for the game. You have to give up something to get something else, and the next playthrough you can try the other approach.

(Wich is why I don't like the too-much-hybrid-everything Osaka. Sorry to the one who designed it, nothing personal.)

The "ship class" buttons are definitely potentially missable. Some games use small portrait icons on the arrow buttons when you are toggling between player options so that you can see what the next/previous choices are.

Things like fighting games use a selection screen, which is a grid of portraits. Transcendence (at least, unmodded Transcendence) doesn't really need that because there are a maximum of 6 choices depending on adventure and players don't start new games frequently enough that the selection screen has to be quickly navigable.

A lot of arcade shooters will list ship classes on top of one another with their stats directly comparable as bar graphs, pictograms or radar charts. Again, maybe not the best option for Transcendence.

Transcendence could benefit from showing a row of small ship images (up to five at a time) that could be inserted between the arrow buttons, a bit like the row of items shown when using them, and a cursor highlighting the selected ship, which is in the middle. Pressing arrow button scrolls the mini-list. Large hero image is still below the row of ship icons.

Playing the E1500 vanilla game. The omnidircirectional laser canon weakened and strengthened stations defense - I can't even destroy the urak outpost in eridani system? 3 refuels now no fuel rods, refueled 3 times at starton eridani, no cash. Not what I call a fun game -dead ending in the first system. Seems like very unbalanced for the E1500 vanilla game.

The Omni laser cannon was powered-up recently. It shoots six times per second instead of 3.75, and its level lowered from 3 to 2. Few people here have called the current Omni laser overpowered.

However, weapons are no longer guaranteed to hit for one damage per hit. This means shots with low damage and WMD may cause no damage on a hit against multi-hull stations of ships' interiors. Lancers and Katana star cannon used to shred stations due to sheer number of hits, but no longer do so.

There are people that play vanilla games and like to play the E1500. Where are the options for the E1500? No drives, virtually no misc items, No omnidirectional weapons, without those options the E1500 is now slower, and more cumbersome and dead. Seems like the only ship you want people to play are the wolfen. Haven't noticed a significant difference in wolfen play not like what I have seen the last 4 or 5 versions on my poor beloved E1500.

Not sure what you're talking about with regard to drives - they're still around and work as well as they ever did.

Regarding other non - weapon devices, yeah, we're definitely lacking in that area, but not any more than we used to be. We could definitely use device setups that are worth sacrificing the agility and max speed of a gunship.

Having heavier armor that slightly nerfs non - WMD damage could make the difference here, giving freighters a noteworthy advantage against lighter gunships that counterbalances the Wolfen's ability to outrun anything that isn't one. It'd also make heavy capital ships feel more consistent - the massive armor plates on a CSC or Phobos really shouldn't be as responsive to peashooters as they are.

There are people that play vanilla games and like to play the E1500. Where are the options for the E1500? No drives, virtually no misc items, No omnidirectional weapons, without those options the E1500 is now slower, and more cumbersome and dead. Seems like the only ship you want people to play are the wolfen. Haven't noticed a significant difference in wolfen play not like what I have seen the last 4 or 5 versions on my poor beloved E1500.

Early game, devices in general are a bit rare. Later, they get more common, and if not, Corporate Trading Post can be used to order something you need or want (although knowing what items are available in the first place without referencing source or wiki is a problem). Omni weapons are rare, but the Omni laser weapon the EI500 starts with can last a while. Also, tracking weapons are nearly or as good as Omni, and this is when the two-weapon limit really bites the EI500. You get an Omni laser and either SmartCannon or NAMI launcher, and... EI500 cannot equip anymore weapons because it already has two.